ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Renowned progressive intellectual and historian Abdullah Malik has said that there are no chances of transfer of power as a result of the October 10 elections, but there will be only change of government.

He was speaking at a programme Abdullah Malik ke sath ek sham, organized by Islamabad Cultural Forum here on Friday.

Talking about amendments being made to the floor crossing law, he said by making such amendments the government wanted to divide PPP and woo its members to strengthen the King’s party.

“The government used all its resources in dividing PML-N in the past and now its next target is the PPP”, Mr Malik observed.

If the government implemented its designs it will be a great tragedy and will have dire consequences and adverse impact on the country, Mr Malik said. He added that it was unfortunate that for the last 55 years the Army directly or indirectly ruling the roast alone. It proved detrimental to democratic culture and institutions, as well as badly affected our socio-economic structure, he said.

Right from the first day of the creation of Pakistan, democracy and democratic institutions were not allowed to work and get strengthened, which resulted in various problems we are confronting today. “Democracy is the only way to resolve all problems”, he added.

The Army, Mr Malik said, has emerged as an organized class and the privileges it was enjoying are due to its grip on power and the Kashmir issue”, he said. He added that the Army was thinking that with the solution of Kashmir issue the forces of peace and prosperity will groom in the region and there will be no role for it in the power sharing. This, he said, is the reason that it is not ready to transfer the power to any democratic government.

Talking on October polls, the historian said there were two ‘kings parties’ in these elections. The Muttahida Majils-i-Amal (MMA) was organized under a planning, which was started from the Deoband Conference held at Peshawar. This conference had three mottos: to give other religious parties a message that the only religious force in Pakistan is Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and they could only get better results in elections without this party; secondly on the other hand, Mr Malik said, the son of Hussain Ahmed Madani, Asad Madani, was invited to the conference to keep the doors of dialogue open with Atal Behari Vajpayee; and thirdly, Musharraf was making its bargaining position with USA stronger.

Abdullah Malik said, “some people were underestimating MMA by terming it the creation of an incident, but I disagreed with these forces. My stand is that in the shape of MMA, a religio-political force has emerged; the component parties of which have common ethnic and religious basis. It has raised the slogan of anti-imperialist and Pakhtoon nationalism”, he added. This slogan, he said, had lot of attraction for the people of NWFP and Balochistan.

He said the leadership of MMA, including Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Akram Durrani, had repeatedly stated that they would change the name of the NWFP, and surrender only four subjects to the Centre while provinces enjoy greater autonomy. MMA leadership is predominantly Pakhtoon and are belonging to one ethnic, linguistic and geographic entity. There is no example of such force in the world except Sri Lanka, he added.

If MMA adopted wrong path, then it is too difficult to stop it, he warned and said in 1970, the military government conducted elections but not accepted the mandate of the people belonging to same ethno-religious and geographical background which led to the dismemberment of the country.

There are possibilities that if the people’s mandate was not accepted the country would face the 1970-like situation.

Talking on changing international scenario and role of Pakistan in world politics, Mr Malik said the debacle of Soviet Union was a big tragedy, which pushed the world into a unipolar system. This has further enhanced the fascist attitude of the US, he added.

This, he said can be assessed with a recent statement of US defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “Our policy during the cold war was attack-oriented, which means that we react against the place wherefrom we were being attacked. Now our policy is threat-oriented, which means if we feel that we will be attacked from somewhere we will attack”.

After declaring Iraq, Iran and North Korea, ‘Axis of Evil’ by America, Pakistan is next target, he observed and added we must adopt a solid strategy by realising the gravity of the situation. He stressed upon the political parties and democratic forces to play their due role in this regard and mobilise masses at grassroots level to bring socio-economic and political changes in the country.

Mr Malik said Marxism was the only science and driving force which could provide material and cultural basis for deep-rooted socio-economic changes. “We must analyse our society and organize people on class basis to pave way for socio-economic revolution”, he asserted.

He said on international level Germany, Russia, France and China were braving US onslaught and the time is not far when the world would revert back into multi-polar system and peoples rule will be established.

“After having a look on this changing scenario, our political parties should join hands with people around the world who are struggling against imperialism, specially the exploitative role of globalization, the IMF and the World Bank”, the Marxists intellectual said adding it is a reality that capitalism which emerged as a power, is generating neo-colonial system. It could be defeated with a mass movement equipped with scientific ideology and power of the people of the world.—Sardar Sheeraz Khan.